Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shen Yuan’s foray into his twenties is marked by a lot more paperwork than he ever expected. “Liu Qingge,” he moans, “Do you think Shifu knows it’s my birthday?”

Liu Qingge lazily shifts to meet his gaze. “I don’t think that that man knows his own birthday,” he says, offering Shen Yuan another sunflower seed.

“You’re lucky,” Shen Yuan grumbles. The sunflower seed crunches in his mouth, Liu Qingge tossing the husk into a growing pile. “You don’t have to do any of this. Why did I pick the scholar peak again?”

“Bai Zhan would have you organize week-long night hunts—and lead them,” Liu Qingge says matter-of-factly. “Or weekly demonstrations.”

“I appreciate that you assume I would somehow make it high enough to make head disciple of Bai Zhan, Liu Qingge,” Shen Yuan says wryly. He knew his limits. No physical education for him, please!

“The work is well-suited to you here,” Liu Qingge observes. “Your shifu has already designated you head disciple in all but name.”

“In name soon, if I can get him to sign off on the forms,” Shen Yuan says. “I keep slipping it in between his normal paperwork to sign, but I think he’s holding off out of spite. Or just so he can keep overworking me.”

“If you finish quickly, we’ll still have time to visit the stall with the hair pins,” Liu Qingge says. Shen Yuan perks up quickly at the mention of visiting the town. There was only so long he could live on an ascetic diet, after all; he was half-convinced the only reason his shifu stuck to it was because it could be eaten in just a few bites if you balled all the steamed vegetables together.

“And dinner will be your responsibility, yeah?” he says with a smile. “As the man of the hour, I demand the rich young master to treat his humble tutor.”

“What tutor,” Liu Qingge rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth ticks up. “Father sent money for both of us. There’s no need to suffer the Qing Jing diet tonight.”

Shen Yuan cheers. “Roasted duck! Noodles! Food that isn’t steamed or boiled herbs!” he exclaims, then whirls around to jab a finger at Liu Qingge. “And I expect a present, too. No slacking just because you’re treating me.”

“This rich young master will oblige,” Liu Qingge says. Shen Yuan smiles—Thank god he’d trained that serious young boy into finally making jokes! Never doubt Shen Yuan’s bad influence!

—

The town is brightly lit as the sun sets, removed far from the fear of beasts in the night by the cultivator peaks looming overhead. Lanterns are strung between the trees and the shops, as the vendors prepare for the bulk of their customers later in the night. They’d arrived a little early, Shen Yuan having finished his work faster with the motivation of real food, and he cranes his neck to try to catch a glimpse of the wares being spread out. “Should we eat first?” he says, Liu Qingge walking at his side. “Looks like they’re mostly still setting up.”

They duck into a favorite of theirs at Liu Qingge’s nod, and Shen Yuan goes to place their order without sparing any expense. The pockets of the Liu family were deep! As he squints at the menu, he realizes with a start: With this birthday, he’s technically come of age.

“...And a bottle of wine to share,” he says after a moment of hesitation. He would only turn twenty once, after all. In China, he would have been able to drink for a while…but it had been easy to forget about alcohol on Qing Jing’s peaks, and his family had never been one to drink much anyways.

It’s with a conflicted mind that he carries the jug back to the table, setting it down with a thud. “Have you ever drank, Liu Qingge?” he says for the sake of saying something. There’s a weird mood settling around him that he tries to shake off. It’s his birthday—no use being melancholy, after all.

“Alcohol is popular on Bai Zhan,” Liu Qingge nods. “I don’t drink much.”

“As expected of the proper Liu-di,” he sighs. He’s suddenly a little sad. If he had stayed in China, would he have snuck beers with friends in the park? Would he have gotten childishly drunk and had to hide it as he stumbled home? …Granted, the housekeeper wouldn’t have said much, but there’s an unknown emotion in his heart still.

He reaches to pour himself a cup, but Liu Qingge catches his hand. “Hm?” he says, tilting his head.

“I’ll pour you a drink,” Liu Qingge says with a little smile. “It is your birthday, after all.”

As the deep-red liquid trickles into his cup, a rush of affection warms him. “So conscientious,” he teases, but he’s grateful—grateful that Liu Qingge had stayed by his side, and grateful that he isn’t alone on his birthday for his first drink. “Shall I pour yours too?”

“The senior should enjoy his night,” Liu Qingge gestures at the plates that begin to fill the table, and pours his own cup quickly before Shen Yuan can protest. “To your birth.”

“To my birth,” he agrees, and he’s feeling warm after a few sips of the wine, enough to beam at Liu Qingge from across the table. “Thank you for treating me.”

“It is my pleasure,” Liu Qingge says, before they start working away at the mountain of food Shen Yuan had impulse ordered.

—

They’re warm and laughing from the alcohol when they wander over to a resting section of the night market, half-tripping in joint uncoordination. “Liu-di,” Shen Yuan says, then squints at the ground. “Liu Qingge. Liu-shidi.”

“Shen Yuan,” Liu Qingge repeats back, sitting down on the bench in a much more ungainly manner than normal. “If we’re repeating ourselves. Shen-shixiong.”

“I like that,” he declares, lips curving into a wide smile. “Makes me sound important.” He sits down next to Liu Qingge with a huff, then remembers. “My present!”

“You’re unbearably eager,” Liu Qingge says, but pulls out two wrapped packages from his sleeves anyways. “These are for you.”

Shen Yuan tears into the first one eagerly. The fabric falls away onto his lap, revealing a set of metal bands engraved with delicate swirls. “To add to your arrows,” Liu Qingge says, plucking one to hold up to the light. “If you feed your qi to them, they will obey your command until it fades, like a rudimentary version of your sword. I thought it might be useful for you.”

“Liu Qingge! Where did you even get these?” Shen Yuan exclaims, admiring the fine craftsmanship. “You’ve already beat yourself. No present could surpass the gift of no longer having to humiliatingly scramble after arrows mid-fight.”

“They will only be effective a few times before needing a recharge,” Liu Qingge elaborates, but he looks plenty pleased at Shen Yuan’s effusive praise. “Do you want your second gift?”

“Of course I do,” Shen Yuan huffs, pulling at the cord on the second one. When he finally sees it, his voice catches in his throat. “Liu Qingge.”

“Do you not like it?” Liu Qingge looks a little anxious but Shen Yuan can barely make his expression out, vision blurring as he carefully holds the scroll in his hands.

It had been easy to forget, sometimes, that his best friend was in fact the young master of the Liu family. He’d made even more of an effort to forget it after their fight as children, when Liu Qingge was clearly so uncomfortable, but—there had been times, when it had been especially obvious that he had grown up in a refined and classically noble environment. When he served tea, he did so with perfect form; on the rare occasions he recited a snippet of verse, his voice flowed clear and melodious.

Indeed, Liu Qingge’s beautiful calligraphy decorates the scroll clutched in his hand, decorating the words of one of his favorite poems. As a post-script, attached, the same penmanship writes: Congratulations on coming of age. Liu Qingge.

“You remembered,” he says, voice hoarse. “I turn twenty tonight.” He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t known Liu Qingge had kept track.

“I remembered,” Liu Qingge agrees warmly.

The night breeze whips his hair into his face. It’s cool against his hot face, flushed from the alcohol. He’s distantly pleased to discover that even Liu Qingge hadn’t escaped its effects, cheeks a fetching red. He brings his hand up to it, pressing the tips of his fingers against its shocking warmth. Liu Qingge leans into his touch, just a little.

When he kisses him, Liu Qingge leans into his lips the same way.

—

To Shen Yuan’s relief, their kiss doesn’t mark the start of some kind of temporary insanity like the kind he’d come to expect from a world based on a shitty webnovel. Liu Qingge still comes around regularly to train with him, or offer him sunflower seeds, or comment on his shifu’s habit of accidentally overworking him. Even so, Liu Qingge leans closer into his side on colder days; he brings back gifts from missions just a little more often, and lays his head in Shen Yuan’s lap to idly chat about a new technique he’s learned. It feels like the most natural progression in the world, to see his best friend in the world come even closer.

His good mood lingers for a few months, enough that his juniors start to be a little freaked out, before an unearthed mountain of reports shatters it within a day.

Qi-draining incident, beast suspected. Report of uncommon terror in disciples—mass hysteria. Designation of major epidemic status approved. “And why,” Shen Yuan asks his shifu, who is pretending once again to have gone deaf prematurely, “has Shifu not passed these to his ever-willing and diligent disciple earlier?”

Finally giving up the ghost, his shifu flaps a dismissive hand. “Those nags from Qian Cao would call a torch a bonfire. Pay them no mind.”

“Some of these are our disciples, Shifu,” he sighs, leafing through the reports. Damn his shifu for inventing enough insanely useful talismans to not get kicked off Cang Qiong earlier. Damn him for being an uncommon once-in-a-lifetime genius! “How long have these been coming in?”

“Only about a month,” his shifu says, squinting at some sort of strange looking device. “Qian Cao has a few people still there, go check on them if you’re that curious. And try to convince them to let me have some mulling-berry extract while you’re at it.”

“Yes, Shifu,” he says, then flees immediately before he gets any more requests for extremely rare and potentially incredibly dangerous poisons to be brought back.

—

The disciples, when he finds them, seem like they’ve gone insane. “Excuse me,” he prompts awkwardly, “Can you describe how you’ve been feeling?”

The girl sitting in the medical ward barely even looks at him, shivering in the mass of blankets she’s surrounded herself with. “Not safe,” she mumbles. “Be careful.”

Her eyes keep darting to a spot just above him. “Is something there?” he asks, secretly praying the answer is a solid no.

“Yes,” she whispers. He resists the urge to whip around. “Watch out.”

Having had enough, he bows out gracefully, shaking his head at a curious Liu Qingge. “Nothing,” he sighs. “Literally not a single one of them can say anything besides scared gibberish.”

“Are they like this due to some sort of beast?” Liu Qingge frowns. “Shifu put out an open hunt notice on a creature supposedly causing this issue.”

Addressing the obvious question in his voice, Shen Yuan says, “If it is, it’s not one I recognize.” He’d already lost one too many rounds of twenty questions with his System. “Stay alert. These things seem like they’re targeting disciples who were alone at the time of the attack.” It’s a foregone conclusion that Liu Qingge would accept the hunt, after all; he might as well warn him of the dangers.

“They have all been junior disciples so far,” Liu Qingge says. Shen Yuan internally bemoans his casual arrogance. Ever heard of big fish in a small pond, Liu-di? There were beasts out there who had beaten down the protagonist near-dead!

“Still,” Shen Yuan frowns, shaking his head. “There’s nothing to say they won’t go after bigger prey.”

Liu Qingge says nothing, probably correctly intuiting that Shen Yuan wouldn’t like whatever answer he gave. Shen Yuan just sighs and vows to actually attend patrol this week instead of skipping it to sleep in.

—

It’s a surprisingly cold night, enough that Liu Qingge feels a chill bleeding through his clothing and has to circulate his qi a little tighter to warm him back up. Then again—it had always been cooler on Qing Jing, regardless of the season, clouds blanketing it in a serene mist most of the year. Cheng Luan vibrates at his side, and he has to concentrate to calm it down.

Liu Qingge had never been the most talented hunter of his cohort. His skills were better suited to the heat of battle, where his blood sang freely and he could stoke the fire circulating through his veins to ever-higher peaks. He wasn’t unskilled, of course; he could never have made it to his position without being competent, but there hadn’t been that innate maddening desire for the chase itself that separated the merely skilled from the geniuses.

Still, he had talent plenty to lead him to the fights he loved best. On this cool night, this talent had served him well by leading him straight to Shen Yuan’s peak, where the remnants of whatever creature had swept through Cang Qiong glowed bright underneath his feet.

He’s excited, as he stalks closer to the grove that the tracks indicate. It’s exciting to track down a creature that promises a good fight, and it’s even more exciting that he’s so close when none of his fellow disciples are. Shen Yuan hadn’t known much about the beast either, despite usually being so quick to dump information about every single weakness onto Liu Qingge that he’d barely even get the chance for a proper fight. It’s an extra layer of challenge that has his blood pumping.

As he steps into the clearing, there’s an unexpected rustling sound from behind him. Wind, or the beast? Liu Qingge tenses, then deliberately relaxes. Cheng Luan stands at the ready, his muscles loose and ready to launch into movement.

There’s a full moon hanging high in the sky. It had lit his way to Qing Jing before getting lost in the overcast fog, and it flashes again above him, clouds briefly parting to let its light through. In the split second that he casts a looming shadow on the soft grass, something intensely dark leaps up towards him from his back. Before he can even bring his sword up to defend, it’s slinking up his blade, inhumanly fast. Before he can even blink, it’s blanketed his eyes with a hazy pitch-black mist, and Liu Qingge falls into inky darkness.

—

His father is standing in front of him, frowning. “Father?” he asks. His voice is higher than he remembers. “What’s wrong?” They’re in the courtyard at home, sand whipping up into a gritty froth around them as wind howls.

“Leave,” his father says, expression stormy. “You do not belong here.”

“What?” His heart pulses. Hadn’t he been honing his cultivation on Cang Qiong? Hadn’t his parents agreed? “What about Cang Qiong?”

“An esteemed cultivator, perched atop an isolated branch and blinded to the world? Do not presume your worth,” his mother says. Her voice is ice-cold. How long had she been there? “If you cultivate immortality on that distant mountain, consider it your new life. You will not return to this home again.”

“Mother,” he swallows. What could he say? Her gaze cuts through him, like a winter wind. She looks like she hates him. “Mother, I have been pursuing—”

“To lie idle is to err,” his sister’s voice recites sweetly. “To fall prey to complacency is to sin. Brother,” she says, disdain dripping from every syllable, “You disappoint me. I used to look up to you so much. Now, I see…the esteemed Liu Qingge is nothing more than a fool chasing his whim.”

“Mingyan!” he calls, words catching in his throat, but she just sneers and steps away. It’s an expression he’s never seen on his sister, but he hates it immediately, hates how it warps her and hates how it makes him feel.

The environment changes, grains of sand reforming into the lush grass of Qing Jing. He’s sitting in a hopeless jumble of limbs, nothing like his usual poise. Shen Yuan looms above him, impossibly tall, despite the fact that he hadn’t been taller than Liu Qingge since they’d been teenagers. “Liu Qingge,” he says, and Liu Qingge barely stops himself from flinching at the sound. There’s a finger underneath his chin in the next second, tilting his face up. “Aw,” Shen Yuan says, fake-sympathetic, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Yuan looks at him like an insect, and he doesn’t like it. There’s a sadistic glint to his eyes that scares Liu Qingge, enough to make him draw away, but Shen Yuan grabs his chin and forces him still. “Poor dumb Liu-di,” Shen Yuan coos. “Naive enough to think someone would want to be his friend. Stupid enough to think his behavior would make anyone want to stay.”

Shen Yuan’s voice changes tones. It’s harsher, mocking. “A brute. A hard-headed idiot. A spoiled brat. An insensitive asshole.” It’s the tone he’s heard a thousand times through letters and complaints, directed at him with full malice. “Did you think I would honestly ever be your friend, with a personality like that?” Shen Yuan laughs at him, cackling reedy and high, before more sand whirls between them.

Now, he’s the one suddenly looming over Shen Yuan. He tries to jerk back, tries to run away from this version of his closest friend that won’t stop cutting at his heart, but some mysterious power holds him in place. Shen Yuan cowers on the ground in a subservient bow in front of him, and he wants to vomit at the sight. “Please, young master! I don’t have anywhere to go!” Shen Yuan cries, dramatic. “I’ll pretend to be your friend if it means I can keep my job! Just don’t kick me out and leave me homeless!”

“That—that isn’t what happened,” Liu Qingge chokes out, but he can barely speak over the disgust that swallows his heart. “He—we exchanged tokens, he forgave my indiscretion.”

“Oh?” A voice breathes into his ears, everywhere and nowhere at once. “What token?”

When he grasps at his hair, it’s suddenly loose, whipping in the strong wind. Tears spring into his eyes as the strands lash at his vision, and he yanks his fingers through his hair hastily trying to find the cord. “Where is it?” he says, desperate, but there’s no response except the beastly howl of the wind.

There’s nothing in front of him now, but he’s fixated on tugging at his hair, mind scattered and terror pulsing through him. Before he can truly focus, he’s swept again into another waking nightmare.

“Press forward,” the voice whispers to him, and Cheng Luan is suddenly heavy in his hands as an entire village spreads out before him. His sword swings without his input, and a sword glare bursts forth, bright and gleaming. The northern corner is decimated in an instant. His unbound hair floats around him, like some sort of divine evil.

“No,” he says, but his arm keeps moving anyways, sending burst after burst pulsing through the screaming people. “No!”

“This power is intoxicating,” he hears his own voice say, so close to his ear that he can’t tell whether he’s speaking out loud or whether it’s his own thoughts. “Who cares if it means I can get stronger?”

It’s a cheap imitation, but the thought horrifies him. “Stop,” he gasps, barely forcing past the undignified way his heart flails in fear. “Stop this madness.”

The wind screeches in response, stealing the words from his mouth before a single sound escapes. He’s suddenly more afraid than he’s ever been in his life, at the wind that leaves him voiceless and a world that rejects him. He screams again, but no sound rips from his throat—he’s truly and totally alone.

—

Shen Yuan’s still rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he patrols, bow lazily hanging at his side, when he notices how unnaturally quiet the forest has gone. Instantly, he’s on edge—no way that spelled anything good, he’d read enough scary stories to know.

When he sneaks closer to the epicenter of the disturbance, he’s suddenly glad that he hadn’t slacked off that day.

His heart beats flutter-fast in his throat at the sight of Liu Qingge, seemingly asleep in an opening in the grove. He’s curled up on his side, clutching Cheng Luan; it’s a surprisingly relaxed posture for the light sleeper he knows Liu Qingge to be.

It’s only once Shen Yuan draws closer that he notices a strange dark miasma settled over Liu Qingge like a blanket and a tear-trail down his cheeks, and his heart beats quickly for a different reason. Panic surges up in him as he fumbles with his bow to flow into a holding position. “Who’s there?” he calls out, but there’s no reply. It’s like they’ve been put into a time chamber, all sounds completely suspended and the weak light of the moon the only thing that lets Shen Yuan see at all.

He shifts his bow again. “Liu Qingge,” he hisses, “Wake up. We’re screwed.”

Liu Qingge makes a distressed noise, deep in his throat, when Shen Yuan says his name. It’s just a little worrying that he isn’t waking up. He’s just about to throw everything to hell and light a flare when the light shifts just slightly, and something dark pulses for a second before settling back down over Liu Qingge.

“Oh,” he says, eyes narrowing. “You’re hiding?” As he swings his bow around aimlessly, a memory comes back to him. He had been a teenager, and easily distracted; he and Liu Qingge had gotten separated, and his own shadow had attacked him. With the way the light shifted…

He throws out an experimental flash of qi to test his theory. There’s a greedy mass of shadows that races away from the flash, only to creep back over Liu Qingge once the light fades. His own fear quickly becomes smugness. “Idiots,” he says under his breath. “I know what they are now.” Of course, he hadn’t considered that they’d be partial formations! When they coalesced, they looked like a proper beast of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Until then, they’d gather their strength by remaining in those disgusting forms that drained qi until they’d glutted themselves with it.

It’s easy enough to drive the few that had draped themselves over Liu Qingge away, thrusting his sword into the ground and reflecting a flash bright enough to make him cover his own eyes with a wince. As they flee, Liu Qingge wakes up with a gasp—it doesn’t seem pleasant, and Shen Yuan kneels down next to him, taking a hand to check his meridians.

He doesn’t expect the vice grip on his wrist, nor the way Liu Qingge surges towards him, clinging to him in a manner that feels more like a grapple hold than a hug.

“Liu Qingge?” he asks, startled. “What’s wrong?” He moves to bring up his arms around him, reconsiders, hovers them around uselessly for a little while, then just settles them on his shoulders.

Liu Qingge lets out a shuddering breath. He’s shaking badly in Shen Yuan’s grip, and Shen Yuan awkwardly brings up a hand to pat at his hair. “Your hair’s all messed up,” he notices, “Let me redo it really quickly.”

Liu Qingge detangles himself at that, scooting forward just enough to leave a sliver of space, and Shen Yuan quickly rebraids and binds his hair up in its customary high sweep. “So that’s how those things get people,” Shen Yuan muses. “Someone else would obviously see their shadow acting weirdly, but people tend to ignore their own.” There’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and he feeds a bit more qi into the lantern he’s holding. The bright flares drive the increasingly darkening patch of shadows back. “Ugh. I guess I didn’t manage to kill it.”

“Don’t think you can,” Liu Qingge says quietly.

“He speaks!” Shen Yuan says, softening the quip with a smile. “Yeah, we can’t do anything about it until all of them gather together. It’s supposed to be a get stronger separately then group up kind of thing, but the complete beast is mostly an illusion. It usually splits off these shadow things while fighting to gain the advantage.”

“Are they drawn to me?” Liu Qingge asks. His eyes are stormy when Shen Yuan looks at them. “They didn’t complete their kill. They keep coming closer.”

“The light should keep them away, and other people mean they won’t attack,” Shen Yuan soothes. A little cute, to know that even the battle-hungry Liu Qingge could be scared! “Once you return to Bai Zhan, there shouldn’t be any issue warding them off through circumstance alone.”

“...Shen Yuan,” Liu Qingge turns to him. “Are you prepared to fight?”

Shen Yuan startles. “Now? I mean, I’m on patrol, so yes…but what do you mean? I just said we can’t kill them.”

“I’m injured to these beasts,” Liu Qingge says, voice gathering strength as he talks. “They’ll continue to gather to what they perceive as weakened prey.”

“So you want to bait them?” Shen Yuan asks, flabbergasted. “You just got attacked! I got them off of you pretty fast, but—” Liu Qingge hadn’t exactly gripped his arms lightly, after all. He’s a little worried there are hard-to-explain bruises left on his arms.

“Better to act sooner than later,” Liu Qingge says. “Besides,” his eyes narrow, “I know their methods now.”

“How exactly do they get to you?” Shen Yuan asks, curious despite himself. They’d choked him years ago, but he hadn’t exactly figured out which part of his face they’d entered through…he’d been a little too freaked out to think about it too much.

“Through my eyes,” Liu Qingge says. He brings a hand up to pass over them, as if in a remembered motion. “They used my blade to leap to my eyes, then somehow entered through them.”

“Nasty,” Shen Yuan shudders. “If they enter through the eyes…” He furrows his brow in thought. “Maybe some sort of goggles? Something to cover your eyes but still allow vision.”

“Neither of us have goggles,” Liu Qingge points out. “And your glasses are solely for sight. Not protection from beasts.”

He fiddles with a hem of his robes. “We could reinforce a sash or something to put over your eyes, but that’d mean you wouldn’t be able to see, so that’s out.”

They’re quiet for a little while in thought, the only sound being the little bursts of qi Shen Yuan sends out to make the lantern flare. He shudders a little at how the shadows are definitely darker than a few minutes ago. Liu Qingge had been right, they were being attracted to him.

“Guide me,” Liu Qingge breaks the silence first. “We may never get this opportunity again.”

“Guide you?” Shen Yuan sputters. “Like, left! Right! That kind of thing?” He shakes his head wildly. “No. What if I get you killed?”

“If they can’t enter, they can’t make me lose awareness,” Liu Qingge says decisively. “I’ll hold my own against the beast.”

“Why not just keep the lantern with you?” Shen Yuan asks. To put himself in danger like that, without a single defense—he knew Liu Qingge was Bai Zhan, but was he crazy?

“Then where will you be? I can fight without sight, but you need it for aim,” Liu Qingge says. He’s definitely right, but Shen Yuan’s pissed anyway.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Shen Yuan says, annoyed, but he stops himself when he sees Liu Qingge flinch, shadow wavering slightly in the dim light of the lantern. “...I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s,” Liu Qingge breathes deeply, shaking his head, “a remnant. From the shadow. Don’t pay it any mind.”

“Okay,” Shen Yuan says, but he scoots just a little closer to Liu Qingge until they’re touching again. “...Are you absolutely sure you can beat it, even if you can’t see it?”

“Yes,” Liu Qingge says. His voice is so confident that just for a second, Shen Yuan sees a glimpse of the future War God.

His resultant sigh is long and deep, and met with a little smile from Liu Qingge that means he knows he’s won. “Don’t gloat,” Shen Yuan rolls his eyes, then stretches out his wrists in preparation. “Okay. Whatever. What do you need me to do?”

“Bai Zhan trains its disciples to fight in any condition,” Liu Qingge says, “including impaired sight. I need you to call out any unexpected behaviors from the beast, or anything I may miss.”

Shen Yuan frowns. “That’s it? Just whatever you might miss?”

“Obstacles, tricks, attacks,” Liu Qingge lists, ticking them off on his fingers. “And the like.”

“Okay, okay,” Shen Yuan groans. “...Are we really doing this right now?”

A nod is enough to confirm that yes, he is indeed doomed to a night of fighting this stupid shadow-creature that the author had one hundred percent definitely stolen from a western novel.

Before they split up, Shen Yuan ties the hastily reinforced sash around Liu Qingge’s eyes, then nods in approval. “You kind of look like one of those mysterious immortal masters wandering the jianghu,” he says, pulling out Liu Qingge’s hair from where it’s plastered against his head. “Stay safe. And don’t let the beast get too close to me,” he adds as an afterthought. “I can’t move the lantern and fight at the same time. My bow’ll get in the way.”

“I’ll make sure,” Liu Qingge promises, then sits down to meditate while Shen Yuan finds a perch far away from him. It’s not long before the shadows swarm around him, but he’d been right—Shen Yuan notices how they seethe and writhe in an inky mass, seemingly unable to affect Liu Qingge as long as he had his protective guard.

The lantern sparks bright next to him as he readies an arrow. The mass is growing darker, now; it’s as if they’re calling to each other to their prey. “Just a little longer now,” he says under his breath. Liu Qingge’s head dips as if he can hear him. (Just how far had his cultivation progressed again?!)

It’s only a few more minutes before he starts to see the signs of its corporeal form appear, swirling into the faint outlines of claws and flesh. They’re hideous, as monsters from Proud Immortal Demon Way often were, but they’re equally as fascinating—there’s a pang of regret at not being able to study them further.

In actuality, the actual transformation is far too anticlimactic. He’s staring at the mass of shadows in the outline of a creature one second, and in the next, a fully formed beast stands in front of Liu Qingge, shadows swirling around its feet like fog. “Liu Qingge!” Shen Yuan calls, heart leaping into his throat. “In front of you!”

Liu Qingge flashes Cheng Luan, and the beast roars a curious roar that shakes his bones, despite the fact that it makes almost no sound. There’s a weird dark-blood dripping from the wound, shadows spilling out like a dry fog experiment he’d seen once on the internet. “Shoot!” he calls to Shen Yuan, and he’s definitely facing the wrong direction but Shen Yuan grasps his intent in a flash: Shoot so we can kill this beast faster, just don’t hit me.

He stands to his full height, shielded by the light of the lantern, to draw his bow. The arrow lodges itself deep in the beast’s side, its mouth opening to scream in its strange voice again. Shen Yuan’s eyes squint at a slight disturbance in the lighting, before he catches—there! A shadow breaks itself off at the beast’s distress, streaking towards Liu Qingge before it just swirls harmlessly at the cloth tied around his eyes.

It’s impressive, as always, to watch the young War God in motion. Even blindfolded, his strikes are clean and his movements are precise; as Shen Yuan watches, he gracefully dodges a swipe of its claws and sweeps his sword in the opening that follows. Another arrow finds its mark in the wound that Liu Qingge makes, and Shen Yuan takes vicious pleasure in how the beast screams in pain. “Rock to your right,” he calls, and Liu Qingge dances around it in a whirl before slashing the creature again in a follow-up strike that would have most of his peers insanely jealous.

Shen Yuan laughs, just a little. Even in such a serious situation—how could he resist, when fighting with Liu Qingge was this fun? He’s the perfect cover for Shen Yuan’s precision strikes, even as fast as he is. There’s no need for Shen Yuan to call his shots when Liu Qingge’s able to sense them as easily as Cheng Luan, their frequent spars having left as many traces of his qi on those silver arrow attachments as Shen Yuan’s own. They cut through the night in paths that would be impossible for any normal arrow, flashing bright in the flickering light of the lantern.

It’s not long before their combined efforts have driven the beast to just a handful of flickering dark masses. “It’s nearly gone!” Shen Yuan yells, heart racing from adrenaline. “Strike it down!”

It’s an insanely cliche line, straight from one of the awful MMORPGs he’d used to play, but Liu Qingge flies backward as soon as the words leave his mouth. In the span of a heartbeat, he’s flipping off his sword and driving it with a kick straight into the center of the mass with an explosion of qi, flaring brilliant in the darkness. Shen Yuan nocks and aims an arrow at Liu Qingge’s direction before he can even consciously process the worry at how he’d left himself defenseless, but it’s entirely unnecessary—the beast cries another soundless wail and vanishes like mist in the morning sun, as unceremoniously as it had come.

For a few seconds, Shen Yuan just stands there like an idiot. He and Liu Qingge really just had killed a pretty formidable beast, all on their own. He was even mostly confident that he hadn’t demolished half his arrows this time! His internal celebration is only interrupted by Liu Qingge calling his name like a question. When he looks across the clearing, Liu Qingge’s still obviously tense, unsure in his posture. Shit!

“Sorry, sorry!” he calls, scrambling to jog over and loosen the blindfold. “I forgot. You killed it, Liu Qingge! Congratulations!” Because he’s an asshole, he adds, “Got your revenge in, huh?”

“I did,” Liu Qingge grins back at him, smile sunny in spite of the nighttime lighting. “As did you. I haven’t forgotten about our first joint mission.”

“You remembered that?” Shen Yuan tugs at his hair in embarrassment, before giving up and just sighing. “Of course you do. Why do you only remember the embarrassing things? And not the number of times I’ve been your deeply commendable elder, full of wisdom and mysterious knowledge?”

“Shen-shixiong is deeply commendable and full of wisdom,” Liu Qingge recites monotonously, before laughing just a little. Shen Yuan’s charmed by his happiness, enough to pull him close despite how sweaty they both are.

“You’re really amazing, Liu Qingge,” he sighs, dragging them both down onto the cool grass. It’s tranquil again now that the monster is dispersed (or dead, he’s not really sure about the difference), and the natural beauty of Qing Jing persists even through moonlight. “You’ll become peak lord one day, won’t you?”

“With you,” Liu Qingge says easily. Shen Yuan smiles at his casual confidence, so reminiscent of the cool War God he’d raged about in the forums all those years ago that he’s just a little star-struck. “We’ll be peak lords together.”

“And you’ll make me do all your forms, won’t you?” Shen Yuan nudges him. “I’ll have to rename Qing Jing the peak of clean-up work,” he sighs, reaching out blindly until he grabs Liu Qingge’s hand. It’s warm and heavier than he expects when he lifts their linked arms up, until their hands are silhouetted against the night sky. “What a tragedy. I guess there’s nothing else I can do but force Shifu to file the paperwork to officially make me his head disciple already so I can steer us away from our fate.”

“You seem to be off to a bad start already,” Liu Qingge observes, holding Shen Yuan’s hand a little tighter. “As a Bai Zhan disciple, I promise to not let you down and create plenty of work for your continued employment.”

“I’ll seriously kill you if you make me do one more of your calligraphy practice sheets just because it’s faster,” Shen Yuan says, bringing their hands down. On a whim, he rolls until he’s bracketing Liu Qingge with his arms, propped up on his elbows. “Hey,” he says, then immediately feels stupid at what he’s about to tell him. Liu Qingge just blinks at him, long eyelashes fluttering rapidly. “...Let’s keep being like this forever.”

“You will always be closest to my heart,” Liu Qingge says, voice serious and face set in soft lines. Shen Yuan thinks, not for the first time, that Liu Qingge really is quite pretty.

“Good!” Shen Yuan says, suddenly embarrassed. Too many emotions for him in one day! He lets himself fall on top of Liu Qingge, prompting a wheeze as his full body weight squashes his lungs. “Otherwise, I’d be really pissed off.”

Liu Qingge looks at him, eyes dancing with mirth, until Shen Yuan turns his face into Liu Qingge’s shoulder. It’s enough for him to take the opportunity to run a hand through Shen Yuan’s hair, brushing it back until Shen Yuan laces their fingers together again. It’s sweet, until Shen Yuan remembers: “Shit! I forgot to wake up the next person on patrol!”

“Go wake them up,” Liu Qingge says, amusement obvious. “I’ll wait here.”

“No fucking way you’ll wait here,” Shen Yuan moans as he gets to his feet, Liu Qingge dragged up alongside him with a grunt. “I’m not suffering alone. You’re coming with me, and you’re going to wait in my room for me until I finish getting yelled at. Then we’re definitely sleeping until at least the midday meal.”

“Whatever you say,” Liu Qingge says, corner of his mouth quirked in a smile.

Shen Yuan smiles sharply right back at him. “Of course. Aren’t I always right?”

When they leave the clearing, they leave together, walking side by side in the thin clear moonlight of a waxing moon. It’s a little awkward weaving through the destroyed foliage and collecting his silver arrow bands on their way back, especially with Liu Qingge so close, but secretly—Shen Yuan is just a little pleased that neither of them let go of their linked hands, held tightly between the two of them like something to be protected.